Katherine Ryan talks about what it was like working with Russell Brand on the British version of Roast Battle for Paramount’s Comedy Central.
During his Sky stand-up special, Katherine Ryan: eldest daughter, the comedian recalled that she joined the show thinking it would make fun of him, “but in a funny way.”
Ryan said: “I got invited on a talk show and I was so excited to do it, but then I found out that if I continued, I would be sitting next to a man who I strongly believe in, but can’t prove. And that’s the lawyer’s choice of words, not mine.”
“At first I turned down the job, but then I thought, Well, he’ll be there in his unnecessarily tight jeans, right? He’ll be there, finger-pointing Tucker Carlson or sucking off a Tibetan monk for views, whatever he’s doing now…I thought I’d go on the show, and I made a moral decision,” she continued, noting that she decided to make jokes about him.
Brand was “okay with it for a while, until finally he had a breakdown and threatened to quit the show.”
Ryan revealed that “the channel was upset.”
She added: “They didn’t want him to leave and they issued him a new contract, which he waltzed into my dressing room and threw in my face the next day. He said, ‘Look, you don’t have the right to be mean to me anymore, because I don’t consent.'”
Russell Brand was accused of sexual assault, rape and other sex crimes by six women in an explosive trial in 2023. The allegations made headlines when The Sunday Times, The Times, And Channel 4 released a joint investigation through their Dispatches program.
